Wessex League Premier Division
Follands Park, Hamble-le-Rice
Admission: £5.00
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: 82
Match Rating: 3
After a month of travelling long distances across the UK for exclusively professional games, I had developed a real yearning for a good grass roots non-league game. Having booked a coach ticket to Southampton some time ago for today, there was still a temptation to make a first visit to St Mary's for some FA Cup action to watch Southampton take on Shrewsbury, but I decided on a Wessex League game, which presented a varied choice within the Southampton area. I finally decided on a 20 minute train ride along the north side of the Solent to watch both of the reigning champions of the Wessex League, Hamble Aerostructures Sports & Social Club (who were champions of Division 1) and Poole Town (back to back champions of the Premier League). If Poole had an adequate ground, they would certainly be plying their trade in the Southern League and probably doing rather well, rather than having to make do with being a class apart in the Wessex League.
Follands Park is located about a 15 minute walk away from Hamble Station - very easily along the same road - and I would certainly recommend walking about the same distance again beyond the ground to the village of Hamble-le-Rice, a very peaceful and moderately enchanting village where yachting dominates the riverside and has a plethora of traditional bars and restaurants to choose from. Having walked back to Follands Park, the ground has quite a typical village football club to it. To get to the ground, one has to enter the Aerostructures factory complex, and after entering the turnstiles, there is a tea bar, a small covered standing area as well as a much longer covered stand with two rows of bench seating. The remainder of this length of the pitch offers hard standing, but with a large model of a Follands Gnat aeroplane `an unusual and interesting feature of the ground in the corner. The other three sides of the ground are just hard standing, with trees along two sides and a neat hedge behind the other goal. The programme was a very decent effort considering the level - not particular attractive, but with plenty of relevant information to digest to prepare the spectators for the game ahead.
If one were to predict the outcome of this game, it would have "away banker" written all over it. Poole Town have started this season in onimoisly commandingly form, unbeaten in their opening thirteen games and have only dropped 6 points so far. Hamble, after a promising start to the season, appear to have been badly affected after a period when, amazingly, ten out of eleven games they played were in cup competitions - including their best ever run in the FA Cup, reaching the 3rd Qualifying Round. Since then, they have only picked up one point from their last four games and now found themselves in 19th place in the 22 team league.
On a typically autumnal day - alternating between being overcast, rainy and sunny, the match started off quite evenly, although with Poole unsurprisingly having the better early chances, before Hamble took the lead thanks to a deflected shot by Jamie Barron. Hamble became the better side and had half chances to extend their lead, before Poole were awarded a penalty after a clumsy tackle by a defender. Stuart Douglasconfidently dispatched the penalty. Poole took the lead thanks to a deft glancing header by Steve Smith. So, with the home side behind at the break to a team with a formindable record of winning games, it looked like it would be an uphill struggle if they were to get anything out of the game. The second half was as even as the first half was, with both sides having chances to score, until Poole extended their lead midway through the second half, thanks to a sublime free-kick by Micky Hubbard, who curled the ball beautifully over the wall and struck the underside of the bar as it went in. This seemed to knock the stuffing out of the home side, as Poole went on to dominate proceedings, with numerous clear chances to score and having a goal disallowed for a seemingly close off-side.In the end, Poole ran out fairly comfortable winners, but full credit to Hamble for showing plenty of attacking intent against such formidable opponents and the game could easily have gone their way. It was good to see a strong colourful and vociferous support for Poole, although of course it is always easy to be passionate in support of a club as currently successful as Poole!
No comments:
Post a Comment